Rivungo fire, 22 August 2025 Rivungo
The fire started on 22 August 2025 in Rivungo, Angola, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 92,552 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 3th largest in Cuando Cubango since 2016 (of 659 with a page). The largest in Angola in 2025, of 191.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 92,552ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 29days
- 22 Aug 2025 – 19 Sept 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- municipalities
- Started on
- 22 Aug
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 3,576
- in a single hotspot: 264 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.4GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 25,651 ha in 2016, 17,297 ha in 2017, 30,505 ha in 2018, 16,012 ha in 2019, 17,034 ha in 2020, 34,209 ha in 2021, 28,302 ha in 2022, 37,293 ha in 2023, 33,745 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 88,474 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Rivungo where it started93,479 ha reached on 22 Aug3.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
The weather day by day
ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Aug | 32.5 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Aug | 33.5 °C | 9 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Aug | 34.1 °C | 6 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Aug | 33.2 °C | 8 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 26 Aug | 33.7 °C | 17 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 27 Aug | 34.2 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Aug | 33.7 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Aug | 34.2 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 30 Aug | 34.0 °C | 7 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 31 Aug | 34.1 °C | 9 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 1 Sept | 33.9 °C | 7 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 2 Sept | 33.5 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 3 Sept | 31.7 °C | 11 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 4 Sept | 32.8 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 5 Sept | 33.5 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Sept | 35.0 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 7 Sept | 35.0 °C | 8 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 8 Sept | 35.6 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 9 Sept | 35.8 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 10 Sept | 36.2 °C | 9 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 11 Sept | 34.5 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 12 Sept | 34.7 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 13 Sept | 35.1 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 14 Sept | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 Sept | 35.8 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 16 Sept | 37.4 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 17 Sept | 37.1 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Sept | 37.5 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 19 Sept | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 20 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 12 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 21 Sept after | 34.5 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 22 Sept after | 35.2 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Sept after | 37.2 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Sept after | 37.6 °C | 12 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 26 Sept after | 36.3 °C | 14 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 27 Sept after | 36.2 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 28 Sept after | 36.0 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 29 Sept after | 34.7 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 2 September 2025 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 3,576Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 24,790 haRivungo23 August 2021 · 18 days · 17 km away
- 48,898 haRivungo17 August 2026 · 20 days · 18 km away
- 43,404 haRivungo26 August 2025 · 19 days · 20 km away
- 72,246 haRivungo30 July 2024 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 36,042 haRivungo7 September 2017 · 23 days · 32 km away
- 25,287 haRivungo7 September 2021 · 24 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rivungo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 August 2025 to 19 September 2025 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2025 to 13 September 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 92,552 hectares (925.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rivungo (93,479 ha, 3.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Angola (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
Where to verify it
A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
Does something look wrong on this page?
This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 August 2025 to 13 September 2025. 3,576 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
Where this data comes from
The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.